Learning journal 3rd week

Q1. The most interesting thing that I learnt in this weak was about the birth control policy. It was not a studying strategies but I think it was good information and studying. In reading class, we did a reading circle and it was about birth control policy of China. We talked about this policy and share each classmate countries’ policy about this. Interest thing was most of country don’t have this birth control policy but they do have a birth support policy. Except China, most of countries have a low birth rate and it’s a huge problem. If young couple doesn’t have a baby, later when they (babies) grow up, they have to support many elderly by their selves. It’s like unbalanced an inverted triangle, that top is full with elderly people who cannot work anymore, and than bottom will be the young generation, who have to work for their parents and grandparents. But if I think about Korea, the education fee is too expensive, even kinder garden, so if we have more than 2 children, it’s gonna be really hard to support. It was good to share each countries situation together. In that reading circle there were lots of difficult words but it was good chance to infer the words. Also, after that we made a sentence with those words and found the collocation about that words, so it was good practice and learning for vocabs.

Q2. What I learnt from outside of HELP. I talked about touching, aka skinship, with Mana and Chris. It was interesting because Korea, Japan and Taiwan have different thoughts about touching. Before I met Kwansei students in HELP, I thought Japanese don’t like to touch other people’s body. Because before I met them there was no chance to meet Japanese and when I read about Japan, I thought they consider a lot about etiquette. So in their language they don’t have bad words and usually do not touch other people’s body as for etiquette. But after I met Japanese friends in HELP, I realize that I was wrong. According to Mana, they usually like to touch each other. I mean don’t hate.  Anyway, we agree that Korea, Japan, and Taiwan like to touch each other but the difference was about touching face. Korean don’t usually touch friend’s face or kiss on the cheek. But Japanese don’t care about this, and for Taiwanese both are okay.  Also, I think, in Korea, we don’t usually talk too close, face to face, but nowadays I sometime realize that face and face are too close with Japanese friend when we talk. I thought Japanese are cold, but they are full of love and really friendly. (or maybe just Kwansei? haha) Of course this is depends on the person, but it was interesting to compare each countries touching habits.

Q3. When I create the GO, first, I just read the article briefly, so I can understand what this article is about. Then, I check the signal words. It shows me about what type is this paragraph, like contrast, comparison, or sequence. After that I decide the figure depends on the type of that article.  But I think usually, most of my GO is same, overlapped two circles, T chart, or charts with arrows. Finally, I organize the information and choose the important key words, so write down them in the charts. I think this is it, when I make a GO. And I still don’t know about signal words… Do I have to write down them in the charts? 

Q4.

Learning journal 2nd week

1. One New thing that you learnt from any of your HELP classes.

            1) In reading class, Daniela class, I learned lots of vocabulary. In other class, I just infer the vocab meaning in context and solve the problems. Like as other reading class, I learned same thing, guess the meaning, and moreover in this reading class, I have to think about the collocations and synonyms too. Maybe because of these, I won’t forget those vocabs. 2) In GO class, I learned about logical connectors. In other class, I learned about this before, but I think GO class logical connectors are harder (?) than other class, maybe because of the amounts of connectors. Also, before I just memorize the connectors before, but in GO class, I have to understand accurately where they used. It makes me tired but it will be really helpful in my reading and writing. 3) In writing class, I learned about how can we use quote in writing. I’ve never learned about this one, so it was new and confused to me. I might don’t use in TOEFL writing, but in academic writing such as essay and report in English, it would be helpful practical tips for real (?) writing. It’s still hard to use quote, but it will make an essay more diverse. 4) In grammar class, I learned about article. Article looks so simple like a, an, the, but it’s so confusing!!!! I need more practice.

2. One New thing that you learnt from outside of HELP classes.

This time was my first Halloween day in U.S, so everything was interesting and exiting, because in Korea, people don’t usually care about Halloween. Although, nowadays it became a trend for young people having a party for Halloween day, but I think most of people don’t know what Halloween is, and so do I.  All I know about Halloween is that people dress up in this day and ask for candies. So I searched about Halloween for detail. On the Internet, it said Halloween was the festival for Samhain who is God of death. People had a party for welcoming new winter and new year, and now it turned to a big festival in U.S. I think, in Korea we don’t have this kind of holiday that every people can enjoy. I saw many family members who dressed up in the same costume. Of course, we have to care about more important holiday, which has good meaning like national holiday, but I think this kind of holiday is good too, which can people unite into one and enjoy together. The only thing I feel sad was I couldn’t watch the young children who visit the house and asking for candies. I’m not sure I can watch it later in someday, because I’ll go back to Korea, but I’m satisfied about this year Halloween. It was good experience for me that I can feel the foreign holiday.

3. Are there any reading strategies in reading in your L1(first language)?

            It’s hard to remember what strategies are there in first language, Korean. I think we don’t have any special strategies for just academic reading. We just learned strategies for University entrance exam.

I learned different type of paragraph in here, like comparison, sequence, or cause-effect. However, in Korea, I remembered that I studied reading paragraphs and solved problems by different genre, like art, science, or literature, just for the test. Guessing words meaning, skimming, scanning or reading first line and last line is same, but I didn’t learn about make a topic sentence or supporting sentence in school, maybe because we don’t have writing test. I think I learned in the academy. I don’t know why I cannot remember my studying, maybe I didn’t study hard…. L haha.

4. Do you have any questions about creating GOs so far? Anything you would like yo know at this point?

                  I don’t have any question for now. I think learning logical connectors by different types are helpful, because I can recognize what kind of this paragraph is this, and also I can use when I write a paragraph. But sometimes, I wonder about making tables, GO, are really helpful for the test? Maybe just think about the test is because I’m used to learn about only test strategies. Like making tables before writing a paragraph, it would be helpful, but if I take the test for real, I think I cannot use the strategies in that time (because I don’t have time). Maybe the reason why I think like this is I didn’t learn GO enough yet, so I want to learn more. 

Learning Journal 1st week

1.        One new thing that you learned in week 1 in any of your classes at HELP.

Fall2 just begins! Actually everything was almost same except that I tried a 400 reading class this time. I was nervous and excited that what’s going to happen in this new class, because I already knew that other 400 level students are really smart and doubt that I can handle this class or not. First, in this reading class, I didn’t learn about academic reading strategies yet, but I felt something by reading an article. Although the reading articles that I read before in other classes were basically same as other class’s reading, some differences were there.  Whether the article was difficult or not, the reading speed was really fast, so I couldn’t even read half of the article. That article had so many difficult words that I couldn’t understand. The article’s level was higher than before and speed also faster than before. That time I felt that I should improve my vocabulary and read more academic articles such as news. I realized that I never read the articles by my self except reading circle.  Second, in writing class, I learned about transition words that can use in our academic writing. I knew about some transition words from other classes, but actually all transitions that I use were limited. That writing class reminded me that there are various transition words that I can use.  Third class was GO class, but we didn’t start GO in earnest. I just learned about concept about GO, so I’m looking forward to study GO class. Also, I didn’t learned new things in the grammar class. I just took a TOEFL grammar test now, so maybe next week I will learn new grammar skills. That’s all what I learned from this term.

2.        One new thing that you learned in week 1 outside of your HELP classes.

The new thing that I learned from outside was about Steve Jobs. I went to the Apple store on Friday and I was wondering about Steve Jobs who affected the big influences to IT business. I came to my home and downloaded the documentary about Steve Jobs’ life. I didn’t know that how much he affects to IT business, because in Korea, although lots of people start to use the Apple’s products such as iPod, iPad, or iPhone, Korean usually use window system computer more than apple’s. So during the watching this documentary, the more I know about him, the more I respect him. In the past, it was hard to get their own computer in house, because it was too expensive to use in normal family and usually computer’s purpose was just for work, so he decided to make computer that people can use easily in anywhere. He started from a small company, which was in his garage, with his friend and sold the small computer circuit board. Later they assembled a computer their selves in their style. He became the CEO of the Apple and the company kept growing. While he was in Apple, there are some problems, which were kicked out from his own company or the Apple failed in market place, but he didn’t stop and kept trying to make better computer. Also, he tried in many different fields like Pixar and Disney. Later he introduced iPod, iPhone and iOS (Mac book), he showed to people that various industries could put in together and connect. It was really big change and it affected big influences to IT business. After I watched this clip, I thought I need more challenges and ambitions, otherwise it will be hard to get success. I learned about the sprit of challenge through one person’s life, who affected big influences to world.

3.        Tell me what you think about language learning and other types of learning. Is there any difference?

There are some differences between leaning language and learning art. I learned about art for almost 10 years and also learning English, although my skills are now good enough, I started learning art and English since I was young. The big difference is about how we study. I mean when we learn language you don’t have to sit and study all the time. You can talk with your international friends or even you can talk with workers in seven eleven, and that kind of talking will help you to improve the English skills. Moreover, when you listen the pop song or watch the movie, it helps your learning English too. There are a lot of ways to use English. It means you don’t have to care too much to find a way to study English. It’s all around the world. However in art, it’s hard to find in other way except just sit and paint. You can go to art museum or watch about art documentary. That would be work, but compare to learning English, it’ still hard to find the art works. If you want to learn art from the usual life, you have to look careful like advertisement or colors of buildings. Now, many countries think that art is important in our life and try to combine the art and life, so maybe it’s possible that in the course of time to find the art everywhere in our life.

4.      Why do we need learning strategies? 

I think we don’t need learning strategies all the time when we learn or use languages, but in the test or academic language such as TOEFL test or TOEIC test, that strategies will be helpful. When we just talk with friends or parents, we don’t have to think much about grammar or sentence structure, because whatever we talk we can understand each other. However, when you write e-mail to your professor or submit the academic essay to class, you need to know about rules for being polite or formal. Therefore the learning strategies give us some tips to make the works easier. Sometimes learning these things are boring, and you may think it’s not helpful, but when we practice and practice, someday we can use the strategies before we aware. I think it’s really helpful to especially in TOEFL and TOEIC. It helps us to solve the problems efficiently, so we don’t have to waste time in other parts and do the key points in short time. It leads to high score, when we use it.